Monthly Archives: April 2014

I remember as a kid huddled around my parents’ late 1960’s GE stereo, tuned into the sounds of the local radio station as the announcer counted down to the number one hit for the week. I still can remember the silky smooth, deep richness of his voice as he announced each song. When I entered into podcasting in 2008, it was a tone I wanted to achieve.

It seems pretty simple to use and provides the rich warmth so often coveted by podcasters. It delivers pristine compression and has a frequency tunable De-Esser that reduces sibilance and high frequency distortion. Basically it tones down your S sounds. The Enhancer on it, the part that really gives a voice its warmth, increases the detail and definition of the high and low frequencies. And, if you are sick of editing out your breathes, the adaptive Expander/Gate on the DBX 286s Microphone Pre-amp Processor is perfect for you. And me for that matter.

I have a distinct memory of driving down Route 222, listening to an early episode of the SciFi Diner Podcast. I could barely hear it over the engine of my Jetta and the din of highway noise around me. When I would flip to The Instance, a podcast by Scott Johnson, I could hear the audio clearly. I knew there was problem. Probably more than one in the early days. I knew my audio recording levels weren’t high enough. What I didn’t know at the time was that I could have fixed it by normalizing it.

When you normalize audio, typically in post production, you change its overall volume by a fixed amount to reach a target level. Unlike compression, which changes volume over time and in varying amount, it changes the audio file only in its volume. Track dynamics remain unaffected.

One reason to normalize an audio file is due to it being recorded too quietly. Like the illustration above, an audio file that is too quiet can cause problems for people on mowers or commuters. Another reason you might want to normalize your audio is to get matching volumes on multiple tracks. For example, one of my co-hosts for the Dune Saga Podcast records his track on his end when we use Google Hangouts and then shares it with us via Drop Box. If our levels are not in sync, we could normalize them to get matching volumes.

So normalization just changes the volume level; however, its not a compression replacement. It can’t bring your highs down and your lows up.

There are different ways to measure volume that can dictate how you normalize. Peak Volume Detection considers only the highest peaks of the wave form. This is optimal if you are trying to get the max volume possible. Another way is RMS Volume Detection. This considers the average volume of the file and when normalization is used with this method, it will take it from the average rather than the peak. The human ear works this way and this method tend to give more natural results

The Heil PR-40 is one of the richest and warmest microphones I have ever spoken into. There is a clarity to the sound they produce that is hiss free. I know I struggled for a bit to shell out the three hundred dollars to get one. At the time, it was the most expensive piece of equipment I was looking at. But the difference between the Shure SM-58 I was using, which was a good microphone, and the Heil PR-40 was startling. I do demonstrate this difference in the attached podcast. This a great microphone for podcasting and worth every cent. If you are serious about your podcasting then the PR 40 is an awesome choice.

Like the condenser microphone, the dynamic has a diaphragm but it is not free floating like the condenser. The diaphragm is attached to a coil of fine wire (see image below). The coil is mounted in the air gap of the magnet such that it is free to move back and forth within the gap.

When you are podcasting, your voice enters the microphone and strikes the diaphragm, and the diaphragm vibrates in response. The coil attached to the diaphragm shakes back and forth in the field of the magnet. As the coil moves through the lines of magnetic force in the gap, a small electrical current is created in the wire. The magnitude and direction of that current is directly related to the motion of the coil, which in turn in affected by the intensity and tone of your voice. The current is an electrical representation of the sound wave.

One of the major drawbacks of the dynamic microphone relates to the mass of its moving coil. Due to this mass, the dynamic mic has a relatively poor transient response (how quickly it responds to changes in the sound wave), and is less sensitive on the average than the condenser mic. Some dynamic microphones, like the Heil PR40, are touted as low mass dynamic microphones, suggesting they have a better transient response.

So the real question you must ask yourself is this: will I be recording in a setting, such as a convention, where I want to pick up ambient noise or am I trying filter out extraneous noise and focus only on my own voice?

Podiobook author Scott Roche joins me on the Podcasting Gear Show this week to talk about the CAD GXL2200 condenser microphone. Scott Roche helps run the Dead Robots Society podcast.

I am gonna be honest; I am not a fan of condenser mics, mainly because I have been unable to make them sound great, but you’ll hear it in the podcast; Scott makes his sound dynamite. So what the heck; even those set in their ways can have their minds changed.

If you aren’t sure what the difference is between Condenser and Dynamic microphones, I will do a little write up as to what a Condenser is this week and what a dynamic is next week. If you just can’t wait, I did do a write up on the subject at Podcaster News.

The CAD GXL2200 Cardioid Condenser Microphone appears to be a solid beginner, microphone with the ability to handle just about any sort of recording you throw at it. You want a mic for live settings like conventions? It will do the job. Recording in your home studio? It has that covered too. It is the perfect microphone for voice recording, which is what we podcasters mainly do. And for a really incredible price.

It lists at $119 but most retailers sell it as low as $60 bucks. You can’t find another condenser or dynamic microphone at this price for that quality. You can buy it here. CAD GXL2200 Cardioid Condenser Microphone

Let me know if any of you are also using the CAD GXL2200 or if you have in the past. I would love to hear your opinions.

One Listener asked “What does the word “condenser” in condenser microphones mean?”

Another form of this question that often comes up is “what is the difference between condenser and dynamic microphones?” Since I chatted with Scott Roche about his CAD GXL2200 Cardioid Condenser Microphone, I’ll address what a condenser is this week and then the dynamic the next.

The terms dynamic and condenser really refer to the method in which the microphone generates an electrical signal. How it takes your sound wave and converts it into a signal.

In a condenser mic, the diaphragm is a very thin plastic film (see diagram above), coated on one side with gold or nickel, and mounted very close to a conductive stationary back plate (again see diagram above). A voltage is applied to the diaphragm by an external power supply (battery or phantom power). The diaphragm and back plate, separated by a small volume of air, form an electrical component called a capacitor (or condenser). The capacitance, or space between these two plates, varies as the freely suspended diaphragm is displaced by the sound wave. As it does so, the electrical charge that it induces in the back plate changes proportionally. The fluctuating voltage on the back plate is therefore an electrical representation of the diaphragm motion.

Because the diaphragm of the condenser is not loaded down with the mass of a coil like the dynamic microphone is, it can respond very quickly to transients, which are the sounds at the beginning of the sound wave form. Many podcasters like condensers because of the authentic sound they provide. (Thanks to Crown for portions of this write up.)

Last, week Dave Jackson called me out on his School of Podcasting Show, ribbing me that the title was STILL too similar. I could have taken offense at that, but when someone who has been podcasting as long as Dave has says something, I need to step back and consider it.

And you know what? He was right. It still was too similar to Ray Ortega’s show. My content was different, more niche, but title was too similar.

Hence, the Podcasting Gear Show was born. I did my homework this time. No one in iTunes has a title like this one. For you listeners, nothing changes. The URL is the same, the feed is the same; its just a name change. Besides, now there is absolutely no question what the show is about.

This week I chatted with Ben DeBono from the SciFi Christian Podcast. I first ran into Ben when the SciFi Christian feuded with the SciFi Diner Podcast, but we decided to “bury the hatchet“, let bygones be bygones, and talk about another program that you can use to help streamline your show. I referred to podcasters suffering from a time poverty in an article I wrote for Podcaster News. This program is another way you can combat this issue that plagues podcasters.

When I first started podcasting, I would record my shows and then add in my intro, outro, sound clips and promos in post production, but Sound Byte changed all that. What Sound Byte allows me to do is to load my intro, outro, promos, listener feedback, etc into the program. I hook up my iPhone, which is how I use SoundByte, to my mixer. When I am recording, I just hit the appropriate sound at the appropriate time, and my sound is recorded right onto my main tracks. I can even fade the sound out so I can speak over it. It seriously could not be easier. It is also available for the PC, the Mac, and the iPad. Sorry, no Android device yet.

This program seriously knocks at least 15 minutes off my post production time. That is another fifteen minutes I can be connecting to my listeners or writing blog posts.

If you are already using SoundByte, let me know how it has helped you in your podcasting. If you are not, listen to the show. I have some ways you can get it for free.